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  1. "Expected" to release methane on Warmer Pacific Ocean Could Release Millions of Tons of Methane · · Score: 1, Insightful

    One must note that environmental science is best at observation, and typically poor at prognostication.

  2. Re:All for poisioning the well on AdNauseam Browser Extension Quietly Clicks On Blocked Ads · · Score: 2

    Hahaha. Mod parent up! That was a solid comeback.

  3. Re:Sadly,... on Uber Banned In Delhi After Taxi Driver Accused of Rape · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Having spent many years living in Asia, I can tell you confidently how to solve *much* of the rape problem in India: Legalize and institutionalize prostitution.

    Unlike every nation in Asia, India has a tiny sex-trade per capita. Smaller even than in the United States. Couple poverty with truly intense social mores, highly limited pre-marital sex and a defacto caste system (despite the propaganda) and you have a recipe for pent up male sexuality. The standard modern response mechanism is to demonize said sexuality and hope to preach morality and respect to a seething mass of adolescent male anger and hormones. To say this policy of condemnation has failed is an understatement. When policy fails, pursuing more of it is insane.

    Prostitution is a rational free-market solution which carries many additional economic benefits besides reduced sexual violence.

    Now cue scores of sexist, white-knight "do-gooders" who will say things like "sex-work endangers women" and other sexist statements that treat women like children. (If you're going to insist, show me the stats please, and then cross reference against miners, fishermen, industrial labor, law enforcement and the military).

    Male sexuality is male sexuality. And in societies where it is deprived to hundreds of millions of men (for decades) until said men prove themselves worthy of marriage is an exercise in social disaster.

  4. Re:Yeesh on Programmer Father Asks: What Gets Little Girls Interested In Science? · · Score: 5, Funny

    The women in the world chess league don't feel "safe" around male players. Those muscle-bound grandmasters are so prone to roid-rage and aggression these days that women need a "safe space" where they can play chess in a separate but equal arena with no patriarchy -- and one where women are guaranteed to win. ...Also, losing in chess may constitute rape in some states, so it's important to separate them.

    / more sarc

  5. Re:Yeesh on Programmer Father Asks: What Gets Little Girls Interested In Science? · · Score: 1

    And don't let him go to the movies:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    No but seriously, women are just as good as men at everything that doesn't require physical strength. Just look at the champs on the women's chess league: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...

    / sarc

  6. And so misinformed on Kim Dotcom Faces Jail At Bail Hearing · · Score: 2

    Well in New Zealand and everywhere else. copyright infringement is a civil offense,

    Will somebody please tell the ignoramuses at ZDnet that there's no such thing as a "criminal copyright violation"?

  7. Re:The lesson on Taxi Medallion Prices Plummet Under Pressure From Uber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Absolutely correct. The Medallion business was artificial scarcity, protected by insiders.

    But on a broader scale the problem is that the world is awash in surplus capacity at every turn. Automation and robotics are compounding that problem at an exponentially increasing rate.

    Ultimately we have too much labor and too much capacity to produce -- everywhere. This is a conundrum for economic models which require scarcity. We weren't supposed to have too much food, too much energy or too much labor. Demand was supposed to increase at a constant rate ...but of course we juiced the world with credit and now we've built productive capacity and availability that cannot possibly be met with demand. We are surrounded by business models and prices which are conceptual remnants of earlier eras when capacity was restricted. These models can only ever be preserved through artificial means, because given a natural, free-market dynamic, competition and automation drive prices south.

    So it's not just medallions that are priced at unsustainable levels. Its nearly everything that's artificially overpriced. And that includes us.

  8. Re: What kind of a "study" is this? on In UK Study, Girls Best Boys At Making Computer Games · · Score: 1

    > "Just that girls are able to create more complex games"

    Actually, that's nice that you added your own personal take-away, but that's not what the study showed. You are turning preference into capacity.

    It's also not how the study is described here on Slashdot:

    "I'm a UK Study, Girls Best Boys at Making Computer Games"

    That is very different from "just" saying anything about complexity.

    And why is performance at a particular age relevant anyway? Is this a study of childhood developmental capacity? Because it sure looks like they're stretching to draw references to gender dynamics within the gaming industry.

  9. What kind of a "study" is this? on In UK Study, Girls Best Boys At Making Computer Games · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Complex stories"? "Two or more parts or conditional clauses"? Two???

    "Trigger their scripts on when a character says something?"

    I am a game developer. I have no idea what they are talking about.

    More fundamentally: is "complexity" good?

  10. Re:Or just practicing for an actual job on Duke: No Mercy For CS 201 Cheaters Who Don't Turn Selves In By Wednesday · · Score: 1

    "I'd never copy code".

    "I'd use that exact library".

    Those are mighty fine hairs to split.

  11. Re:Or just practicing for an actual job on Duke: No Mercy For CS 201 Cheaters Who Don't Turn Selves In By Wednesday · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think you're using very negative words for a very normal part of the coding process.

    For example, about 20 minutes ago I needed a function to measure password strength. Could I have written it from scratch? Of course. Did I? Hell, no. That would be a needless waste of time. I used the Interwebs and had a choice of 3 or 4 perfectly good functions within about a minute.

    That's how coding works today. And if you're not making use of other people's code you're not doing it right.

  12. Or just practicing for an actual job on Duke: No Mercy For CS 201 Cheaters Who Don't Turn Selves In By Wednesday · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Just out of curiosity are there any professional programmers out there who don't regularly copy functions from the Internet?

    Part of being a contemporary coder is making use of available code. Libraries of functions are "other people's code". Languages are other people's code. Etc. it's all about other people's code.

  13. Not particularly useful on Researchers Demonstrate Electrically Activated Micro-Muscles · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The field of artificial muscles already has multiple competing technologies which are superior to this.

    For one, the amount of force generated here is problematically low. Secondly, gold? That's going to be a problem for obvious reasons.

    The future is in a combination of electroactive polymers and/or electro/thermally-activated shape-memory alloys -- both of which are cheap light and flexible.

  14. Re:Destiny ? on Blizzard Announces Overwatch, a First-Person Shooter · · Score: 1

    The term PC was invented by IBM to describe the original IBM-PC.

    Windows PC's are the descendants of the IBM-PC. Macs aren't. Which is why "PC" implies "Windows PC" everywhere and always in the software business unless it is prefixed by "Linux" or "Chrome".

    The logic of what "PC" should or shouldn't mean is irrelevant. Language is a system of practice, not logic.

  15. Something we don't really need on Start-Up Vsenn Emerges From Stealth With Project Ara Modular Phone Competitor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The entire argument in favor of modular phones is highly questionable IMHO. I see little evidence that this will represent a cost savings for consumers, that modular phones offer any serious advantages -- or that this is even something consumers want. It is also highly likely that modular phones will be larger, as modularity implies a component system that is by-definition less space-efficient than factory assembled.

  16. We're in 100% agreement. You're misreading the position of my comment ;)

  17. Anyone not woowoo pro-globalization (usually being historically-ignorant, and pro-socialist dictatorships) has already established:

    1. There are massive profit incentives in the hundreds of billions of dollars for establishing a worldwide treatise system of carbon credits, which in turn will require a common, goal-seeked understanding of global warming and anthropogenic causality.

    2. This doesn't mean that the world's about to end, but we aren't doing enough to prevent profound harm to your civil rights.

    Carry on. ( Non-free thinkers usually do. )

  18. Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too on UN Climate Change Panel: It's Happening, and It's Almost Entirely Man's Fault · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Some will say the sun's energy is indeed variable but the effect on Earth is basically invariable -- thereby calling the sun's energy a constant while pretending to account for variance.

    Bad science.

  19. Re:Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too on UN Climate Change Panel: It's Happening, and It's Almost Entirely Man's Fault · · Score: 1

    Show me where it's not considered a constant. 1 study.

  20. Let's talk about the Sun... And Mars too on UN Climate Change Panel: It's Happening, and It's Almost Entirely Man's Fault · · Score: -1, Troll

    How do you explain the matching ice-cap depletion on Mars?

    Why, in a supposedly scientific study of warning is the source of warming (ie: the Sun) ignored and/or considered a constant in every study?

  21. Seems like a bad way to do it on Remote Vision Through a Virtual Reality Headset (Video) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wouldn't it be easier to have a video stream which contains the full sphere of video data at all times, and use the client-headset position to display a subset of that data?

    That would allow infinite numbers of people to share the same virtual experience rather than create a silly 1-to-1 mechanized connection.

  22. Re:Boy toy on NPR: '80s Ads Are Responsible For the Lack of Women Coders · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Men and women are interested in different things. The feminists are beginning to look both silly and desperate in their efforts to come up with social explanations while ignoring the obvious truth: male and female brains are different.

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p...

  23. Women prefer male bosses on NASA's HI-SEAS Project Results Suggests a Women-Only Mars Crew · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No really. Before you mod this flamebait, check the studies. It's 100% true. Statistically speaking (well, at least according to several large surveys), most women actually do prefer male authority in the work-place.

    http://www.businessweek.com/ar...

    And there are thousands of nightmare tales about all female workplaces...

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem...

    Of course such statistics and stories will forever be dismissed by social justice warriors... And there are many here on Slashdot.

  24. Sounds like a planned PR stunt to me. on The Correct Response To Photo Hack Victim-Blamers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Oh please. I say this is a massive publicity stunt. How many celebs leaked "sex tapes" back in the day, expressing outrage right up until the months of careful planning and PR were revealed.

    Secondly, "sex crime"? Good lord. Women today want everything to be classified as a sex crime. Give me a break.

  25. Re: Who wants it? on Crowdsourced Remake "The Empire Strikes Back Uncut" Now Complete · · Score: 1

    I especially liked the introduction / explanation by Yoda.